Sometimes I feel Hollywood has run out of original ideas. In these last few years a good proportion of the movies released were re-makes of forgotten classics. I know, it's easier to make success with a story that has already been well received by the audiences... but please, be a bit more original!
Maybe the best example of Hollywood's re-making tendencies is the case of Ocean's Eleven - a 1960 crime comedy with the Rat Pack in the title roles (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, Jr., Joey Bishop, Corbett Monica, Peter Lawford). It was a story about how Danny Ocean - played by the legendary voice Frank Sinatra - gathers a team of eleven friend to rob the five biggest casinos in Las Vegas in a single night.
The movie was well received, and critically acclaimed as well - it was nominated for the Golden Laurel award in the Top Action Drama category (it won the fourth place), and the Writers Guild of America award in the Best Written American Category category. Besides, it was also a financial success for its producers - with an estimated budget of $2.8 million, and grossing over $12.
Steven Soderbergh's take on the movie was a bit more expensive, but it also had much bigger revenues. Filmed out of a budget of about $85 million, it gathered almost $50 million in its opening weekend (about $38 million in the US alone).
In the new version the number of casinos to rob was down to three, and the number of the famous actors in the movie was also reduced - George Clooney was cast as Billy Ocean, and he was supported by world class actors like Matt Damon, Brad Pitt and Andy Garcia.
The movie was not just a box office success - it was nominated to 18 awards (although the number of possible nominations has grown considerably since the 1960s) and won four of them: Andy Garcia won an ALMA Award, David Holmes won a BMI Film Music Award, the movie won a Bogey Award in Gold and an NBR Award.
I wonder what's next. Will Hollywood spit out another remake of the remake, this time about a team of eleven hackers trying to rob the 10 best online casinos listed at grizzlygambling.com? Instead of a blackjack table, we will see Danny Ocean waste his time playing the featured Canadian slots (just to have some product placement as well, a very popular trick for moviemakers to earn an extra buck) in front of his new Apple laptop? It sounds crazy, but it would surely fit in the digitally augmented world of today. It has been almost 14 years since the first Ocean's Eleven remake, it would be time to do another one.
I've seen both movies - and I must say the remake is nowhere near the quality of the original. And neither are the actors - those willing to take on a role originally played by Frankie have some huge shoes to fill. And from here on, it's downhill...